BioWare's Dr. Ray Muzyka took to the stage at E3 to announce plans for Star Wars: the Old Republic, their Star Wars MMORPG. He unveils plans to add more PvP warzones, more challenging group- and higher-level content (including a new version of hardcore mode), new companion characters, player-requested features, and more to the game over the coming year. He caps things off by announcing plans for limited free-to-play support, saying beginning in July, everyone will be able to play the game up to level 15 for free.

The Half Elf wrote on Jun 4, 2012, 16:54:That's the problem, even if they player base surges, those who are higher then 15 (more like the 30-40 range like my character) are still in empty zones without enough people to do all the damn heroics that are filling up more then half of my quest journal.

Just phuck the heroics. They may yield decent XP but in the time spent looking for a group you will make 2x the amount of XP doing regular quests.

The thing is I REALLY do enjoy the content in TOR, and I really do want to experience all of it. The problem is when you have a limit of 25 quests, and 15 or more are Heroics, it's a problem.Same thing with the Task Forces. I would love to do The Jedi Prisoner, but getting people who want to do it on regular difficulty is damn near impossible.

I know. I last played TOR in January and even then it was really hard to find a group for the mid level heroics (Jedi Sentinel). People just didn't seem to be interested. I also ended up with lots of unfinished heroics from Tatooine and Alderaan in my journal and eventually deleted them all because some had turned grey in the meantime anyway.I think it's not just a case of server population but also a matter of the type of player this game is attracting. TOR seems to be attracting a lot of single players who are fine with just playing the game their way - single. For example, I've never seen MMO chat as dead as in TOR. Even when there were 60 people on a planet there was zero talk going on (unless it was Friday night and you had a couple of drunks spamming chat with nonsense).

Their group finder is coming way too late. Most people -the real MMO'ers- who wanted more than just a watered down KotOR 3 with an always online requirement have long moved on...

Slashman wrote on Jun 4, 2012, 23:39:The Elder Scrolls MMO is another example of something doomed before it even starts. But they blindly charge forward expecting a different outcome by doing the exact same things that have been failing.

Not to mention the ES community didn't even ask for an MMO. They asked for a multiplayer feature be added to the singleplayer game. So, you can expect a bunch of people from the ES community itself to reject/boycott this MMO. lulz

This game was a failure as soon as it was announced. The genre was burnt out even before the project started. Not to mention choosing a burnt out theme and one that not too many female gamers care about. Bioware made a really bad choice.

I'm just amazed that investors are still willing to put their cash behind WoW clones.

Even after failure on top of failure of any game to be a WoW competitor much less a WoW killer, something still makes people want to bet on a formula that has really only been successful for a single game for the past 8 years.

The Elder Scrolls MMO is another example of something doomed before it even starts. But they blindly charge forward expecting a different outcome by doing the exact same things that have been failing. You simply can't do it that way anymore.

panbient wrote on Jun 4, 2012, 17:56:Congratulations? You managed to somehow avoid one of the biggest shifts in gaming for a good decade until most of the big ones still standing had gone free to play (D&D, LotR, City of Heroes, Everquest) then decided on one of the only new ones to still require a monthly fee...

The Half Elf wrote on Jun 4, 2012, 16:54:That's the problem, even if they player base surges, those who are higher then 15 (more like the 30-40 range like my character) are still in empty zones without enough people to do all the damn heroics that are filling up more then half of my quest journal.

Just phuck the heroics. They may yield decent XP but in the time spent looking for a group you will make 2x the amount of XP doing regular quests.

The thing is I REALLY do enjoy the content in TOR, and I really do want to experience all of it. The problem is when you have a limit of 25 quests, and 15 or more are Heroics, it's a problem.Same thing with the Task Forces. I would love to do The Jedi Prisoner, but getting people who want to do it on regular difficulty is damn near impossible.

Using a steering wheel on a Burnout game is like using the Space Shuttle controls to fly a kite.

I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately the games that have tried a different receipe have been total disasters for their developers (thinking of Conan here) But I think what made it fail was the game's shortcomings rather than its originality.

Cutter wrote on Jun 4, 2012, 18:10:Nah, just tired of the standard fomrulas. I've been enjoying the hell out of GW2 so far and am amped for this weekend's coming test.

Ayup. Same shit with different paint doesn't cut it, anymore. People are sick of WoW clones.

GW2 is fairly refreshing.

And that is what the genre needs... vastly different gameplay between MMO's like we had in the early days (UO, vs EQ, vs AC... totally different gameplay although they were all medieval settings)

Technically... everything is an EQ clone (even WoW), when you look at if from the "standard formula" perspective... just evolved to being way more solo friendly, and being peppered with "mundane tasks" being passed off as quests.